One of the most critical artists on the contemporary art scene is Zhang Huan. His works are of great social insight and unique in how he applies his artistic expression. He thus makes them an almost visual feast with a peek into the multilevel structure of modern society. One such work is the masterpiece "Family Tree," which shows how art can mould our social cognition through multilayered symbolism and profound imagery.
Daniel Hewson describes the use of protest posters and the work of collective, Burning Museum, and artist, Faith47, in the Fees Must Fall movement taking place in South Africa:
Submission for The Line is Drawn, theme "Male superheroes see how the other side lives".
Wonder Woman makes the rest of the JLA wear various costumes she's had over the years.
Located off the west coast of Scotland are the Outer Hebrides, an island chain where Finnish artists Pekka Niittyvirta and Timo Aho decided to install their piece, Lines. The installation is composed of lines of light wrapped around buildings or hovering on a grass field. At high tide, the lights turn on, illuminating the serene landscape, and marking the height of future sea-level rise on the low-lying archipelago.
In Venezuela, the far right opposition has protested against the leftist regime of Maduro. Violence has swept through the capital, Caracas, and other cities throughout the country. Meanwhile, the Western world has had its eye on Ukraine, and received relatively little news coverage of what is actually going on in Venezuela. An epidemic of misinformation has spread as a result.
V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery.
Artist Daniel Soares pasted Photoshop toolbar stickers on these H&M posters as a nice little reminder that not all is as it seems. Y'all know how Photoshop messes with our perception of beauty, and I think this is a smart little stunt to snap us back into reality when we start to wonder why we never look like the girls on the posters we walk past every day.
Environmental activist Ella Daish has created a giant tampon applicator as part of a protest against single-use plastic. The piece is made out of period plastic found polluting beaches, waterways, and local ecosystems in the UK. Daish sourced 1,200 applicators from 15 different locations across the United Kingdom. Of the plastic applicators collected for the project, 87.5 percent came from one brand, Tampax.
The Protest Mask Project was co-organized by Maggie Thompson and Jaida Grey Eagle. During the George Floyd protests, the artists' studio, Makwa Studio, created hundreds of masks to give to protestors in the city of Minneapolis where the demonstrations began.
A video campaign titled Sympathy Cards, initially released in 2018, is going viral again.
The chilling video depicts, via hidden cameras, shoppers walking by or browsing the greeting cards section at a shop. Shocked, confused, some visibly upset, shoppers freeze when they notice that, along with the traditional selection of greeting cards, is a section devoted to school shootings.
A striking new cultural space is taking shape in New York’s Hudson Valley. Alex Grey and Allyson Grey, co-founders of CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, have launched a Kickstarter campaign to build Entheon, sanctuary of visionary art, to ask for support to complete the build.
On 17 June 2007, a horrific vision was offered to the viewers of the Czech morning program Panorama: instead of idyllic hills, the image of a mushroom cloud was broadcast by a weather camera installed in the Krkonoše mountains, which caused a brief moment of panic in a country that is regularly agitated by debates on nuclear power. The panic wasn’t justified.
Fast-casual chain Chipotle Mexican Grill added some spice to its long-running "Food With Integrity" sustainable farming campaign by teaming with Academy Award-winning design firm Moonbot Studios for The Scarecrow, an animated short film and accompanying mobile game created to increase consumer awareness of animal confinement, synthetic growth hormones, toxic pesticides and other fixtures of industrial food production.
Asian Americans standing up for themselves, the Black Lives Matter movement, and their home: New York City
In 2020, as COVID-19 flared through New York City and NYC hospitals saw a spike of nearly 200,000 patients, Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs) faced an added threat: blame, racism, and xenophobia.
On Sunday, April 29, dozens of protesters occupied the Beaux-Arts Court at the Brooklyn Museum as they reiterated demands for a decolonization commission, about which the art institution has remained silent. The calls for the commission come after the criticisms that followed the appointment of two white curators to the museum, including in the field of African art.
"Built from the ground up by Black trans coders and developers, The Black Trans Archive takes the form of a video game, allowing visitors to interact with its content in real-time, making their own contributions in the process. It’s also specifically designed to ensure that this work can never be deleted, allowing everything contained within it to persist long beyond anyone who was involved in its creation.
User @ArmoredSuperHeavy on Twitter recently posted a master document detailing their explorations into bookbinding, fanfiction preservation, and the online gift economy. Their bookbinding venture, named Dead Dove Publishing, is a project that seeks to preserve and legitimize fanworks and celebrate the fandom gift economy. The document explains their actions and the work they have done since they began two years ago.
Graffiti art is particularly viewed as a powerful form of social protest, and the (illegal) act of defacing can be as important as the message itself. Artist Void One has been arrested on numerous occasions for his politically-charged interventions.
“I didn’t set out to make political art but art is a platform where I can vent my frustrations” – Void One.
The series "No Violence Against Women" depicts famous cartoon couples transformed into victims of abuse. The women are left bloodied and with black eyes with the slogan "What Kind of Man are You?" above. The images are a commentary on domestic violence and were released in honor of International Women's Day